One of the most endearing and emotional stories of all time returns to the modern screen, here to honor the 50th anniversary of its original publication. For many appreciators of the original, or its absolute triumph of an anime adaptation, it was one of the most exciting announcements in a while. Then the worry came to them, could they truly adapt a decently long and well cherished work into a single movie?

They could not, the result is a bastardization of the source that surprised even negative expectations. It's the Rose of Versailles, and the rose has wilted.

I'll start with the few positives that are rather enjoyable to a degree. The animation quality is pretty enjoyable, it's certainly obvious Mappa did not want to drop the ball on that element. Occasionally there's also a pretty decent song playing as well, though it actually lends into an issue to be mentioned later. Besides this, at the end of the day it's still rather nice to finally see Oscar Francois De Jarjayes again, even if it might be truly for the last time; hopefully this movie may inspire others to watch the anime or read the original source manga.

The negatives are compounding and lengthy enough that certain French citizens might be incited to cause a rebellion. The most egregious of the lot is cutting characters from the plot, including main characters! Rosalie and Jeanne who are meant to serve as the citizen's viewpoint of the country are completely removed from the story, with the former being shown for a few seconds as a cameo. When you're watching be sure to look for a young peasant girl with blonde hair, that's Rosalie from the incredibly niche manga The Rose of Versailles! Another major player completely cut from the film aside from a single still shot in a musical time skip sequence is Madam Du Barry, the individual responsible for showcasing Antionette's sin of pride. Her entire arc is just removed, completely egregious.

As expected some parts are excluded from the story, those unfortunately being some of the most important. The diamond necklace affair is one of the most notable scandals in all of French noble history, and here it's also downgraded to a single still shot within a musical time skip. If you had any interest in the affairs Jeanne or Rosalie got to then don't worry you're welcome to skip the movie, it's all completely removed. And if you were really hoping to see the climatic affairs of the Estates-General on the big screen you'll be deeply disappointed by their exclusion.

The characters that do exist are only a shallow form of their source, mostly highlighted by some of the missing arcs they were supposed to go through. Antionette is the worst off, we see hardly any of her development as the Dauphine nor her fall from grace during her years as Queen. In fact, after Oscar refuses to rejoin the royal guard, we don't even see Antionette again at all for the entire movie aside from a still during the credits sequence! Fersen is actually more tolerable in this movie, an aspect that goes against his character in a way since he's actually supposed to make a reappearance later on. I'll also mention here that his disappearance made no sense, where the hell did the letter that ratted him and Antionette come from? It's never said. Oscar of course is still the best character of the set, but missing quite a lot of her development that often stems from the whole "gendernomics" issue she has because of her dad. The latter is actually the most chill and reasonable person in the show who just easily buckles under her refusal to marriage, it's like a completely different character from the professional hard-ass who messes up her life due to his own selfishness. Andre's still awesome for the most part, and still by far way hotter than Fersen, but having half the movie basically treat him as a background character was rather shameful and hardly builds up to the final relationship between him and Oscar.

The last things to complain about reflects on the delivery of the movie itself. I really don't get why the music has such a massively different tone than what the manga feels like, the anime was certainly nothing like it either. This almost feels like a Disney musical at some points, and the genre of music used is very inconsistent as well from emotional pieces to a pop boy band to even a shonen style fight song. Another issue is how the movie constantly uses montages that either lead to timeskips over important parts of the manga, or flashbacks to mere minutes ago in the movie. There's also quite a lot of symbolism that feels incredibly out of place, all the Greek mythology elements feel shoe horned in rather than having a proper meaning. There's also a song literally for Andre having sex with Oscar, it's a bit goofy but I can atleast respect Andre finally getting something good for once in his life after being screwed over forever.

Overall, I'm just thoroughly disappointed, and maybe forming such opinions based on comparison to the source and an old show are unfair in some eyes but I truly cannot recommend this movie when those exist. The Rose of Versailles should be a monument to history, love, class struggles, gender roles, political affairs, court dramas, beauty and revolution. Instead it's a monument to what could have been, and sadly will probably be remembered by future generations as the new way to watch Lady Oscar.

Please watch the original Rose of Versailles.